Sunday, September 8, 2019

“Language on the Move" 10th Anniversary
Year! Please join “Humboldt Symposium,” cutting-edge social and natural
science programs in Macquarie uni, Nov 22-24. Registration, here https://bit.ly/2k5JbYE A great honour, I'll
sketch it as a conference artist! I’ve looked at LOTM from the beginning and
its growing.

LOTM Starting up was very tough, but Prof Ingrid Piller has kept up her
activities – fought for social justice and advocated the disadvantaged by
leading research and critical analyses. Many prominent sociolinguists have come
out from her supervision. They've formed a world leading sociolinguist team,
“Language On the Move”. Their humanistic blog posts have gained a big praise in
academia and world. Today, foremost linguists visit LOTM. Congrats, Ingrid, Team!! Friends, come and see this face and her team!

Monday, August 26, 2019

Fantastic. I really enjoyed the conference. I made friends with artists, institutions, universities in Australia as well as overseas. What a wonderful day! Great fun, catching up with old and new friends.Btw, I come up a bit in the video that shows I'm sketching a person. Day 1 Video

Day 2 Video Btw I come up in the video, too. I enjoyed the workshops and networking. This conference has shown methods and tools to expand an artist's career to the future. Talking of me, another residential council staff has contacted me after the conference. With them, I'm now enjoying a chat over my potential future job.

Friends, have you ever attended any conferences or workshops? Try them. Don't be shy. They will give you more opportunities, helpful knowledge and new friends. Thank you very much, Accessible Arts, for your hard work.

Monday, August 19, 2019

Cherry blossoms are a national flower to Japan. They are, now, blooming out in Sydney. Lovely. A spring always reminds me of hope and dream or wishes. My dream is to create a quality picture book!

Re a children picture book illustration, I'm placing the text on the images/spreads in the storyboard. Mentors, publisher Helen Chamberlin and Ann James give me very positive feedback and a great encouragement and guide. Busy. This Thursday and Friday, I'll attend the Arts Activated Conference for people with disability. If you are interested in it, come over! I love to see life coming up again in a spring after a winter. Tiny greens whisper how strong life is in a chilly wind. Always, a spring will come. Yet, I feel, one condition applies or hope, if we want to get into a spring in our human society. Keeping hope or never give up hope, is the crucial condition to make it happen. That requires courage and guts. I'll keep up. Take care, Friends. If you join, see you at the conference. Let us have hope and dream. Happy Painting and Have a Creative Week!

Monday, August 12, 2019

Thank you for waiting for the post. I’ve submitted the storyboard and all colour roughs of a picture book project funded by Australia Gov! Hurrah! Busy, but very happy and fun. Picture book illustration often requires painstaking efforts and research. Back to the topic, our Japan trip.

After Matsushima, Libby Hathorn and I visited Kanazawa for research. I collected data on shrines and temples, too. This is a shrine. I began to understand the differences between Buddhism temples and Shinto shrines in architecture. Such information has become my references for illustration.

As well as shrines and temples, I was very interested
in old fashioned houses or Higashi Chaya and a famous
garden, “Kenrokuen”, historical places and a Japanese castle. This place is called, "Higashi Chaya." Libby and I looked around Basho visited temple, an old samurai owned house and historical spots. They have become my great references. A guide kindly explained the facts very well and helped our understandings.

Kenrokuen is known for the beautiful garden that has Basho's haiku spots. We walked through lovely trees, flowers and a sweet air on mosses. Unlike Australia, it's relatively humid. There were ponds, too. Landscapes are very beautiful.

Now, I'm enjoying creating the images for the picture book in Sydney. I deeply thank you for the staff at Japanese hotels, a kind guide and lovely Japanese people who helped us. Libby and I will create an interesting picture book on Basho and children!

Wednesday, July 24, 2019

Hi,
Friends, I’ve been working on the images and a storyboard for the picture book
project funded by Australian Gov. I visited Entsū-in known for a beautiful
garden, Godaidō on an island, zen temple
Zuiganji (瑞巌寺), etc, to collect the visual images and data in Matsushima. Temples have been a community centre in a local area like church in Western countries. It was crucial for Basho and Sora to visit there, connected them and ran their haiku workshops to establish a new literature, haikai in Edo era. Entsū-in in Matsushima has a beautiful architecture and a "karesansui" garden that shows waterstreams by rocks.

Godaidō: Temple on an Island just next
to the pier in Matsushima. An author Libby Hathorn and I visited there at the
beginning of a summer. Haiku poet Basho (1644–94) loved Matsushima’s moon and
the beautiful scenery in his travel poem diary. Like him, I've rediscovered the
beauty of Japan in the trip.

Zuiganji (瑞巌寺) is one of the most famous Zen temples in Tohoku area. Basho and
Sora visited temples and shrines. Btw the 2011 tsunami had damaged many trees I
realised on the way to the main hall entrance, below. Zuiganji was having a
rock or pop music (?) freebie open concert in the evening! Certainly, a temple still plays the role of a community centre like church in Australia.

A kitchen in Zuiganji, in the past. The
kitchen and the hall are Japanese national treasures. In my memory, a museum is
near to this kitchen. Libby and I learned about a Japanese history.

Matsushima is so beautiful that has a sea, mountains, historical architectures and a museum. People are so kind to us, visitors.

Those images and experiences have become great inspiration for me and I'm creating illustrations. I hope my inspirations will bloom out in this project.

Thursday, July 18, 2019

Certainly, I enjoyed "graffiti" in a lovely Italian restaurant,
"Toto," in Matsushima! I drew the managers (*manager Kanji Abe, Chef Mai Miyachika) on the wall! They loved my work and added an "extra" stuff on my plate. Yam! It was great! I always wanted to draw on the wall freely. A wall should be, the bigger, the better. With jealousy, I would look at a huge graffiti along the railway lines walls to uni, ahaha?! Now, my dream came true. Here we go.

manager Kanji Abe, Chef Mai Miyachika. Kanji executes the shop well and offers a very good customer service. Mai creates splendid dishes I love. It was a wonderful break for an artist in a research trip in Japan.

Btw, my tips of caricatures on walls are... "guts" and that's all! You know, regarding graffiti, there's no way back in drawing on a wall. But paradoxically, a relaxed mind is essential to produce lively drawings. Yes, if a hand gets stiff from a high tension, she only creates a dull work.

The best moment was celebrating my graffiti with all the people in the shop. The wonderful dish is on the table. Can you see it in the photo below? We have become friends after this and keep in touch. Wow, another bonus from a trip!

I'm sure Basho and Sora, too, were setting up networking in a northern part of Japan by their trip on feet. Not easy to make friends with others though, it is a joy in life. Our trip continues to explore Japan. Friends, Happy Painting. Draw everywhere and anywhere.

Monday, July 8, 2019

Thank you very much for your patience! This post shows landscapes in Matsushima. There are mountains, rice fields,
a sea and islands, all together at once! In the trip, I was very keen to collect the images of countrysides and traditional houses, temples and shrines. In Matsushima, Basho and Sora produced haiku in beautiful landscapes and to the beautiful moon. They connected the local haiku poets and promoted the new literature, haiku in a Japanese northeast area. I admire Basho's enthusiasm and dedication for haiku. A following post will show famous temples. I wanted to feel the similarity and the differences between Japan and Australia, too.

I tried to feel my being in Matsushima with all my senses like Basho. I projected myself onto the poet in Edo era. What did he feel in that taste, a breeze, an early summer etc, etc? The experienced feelings have become the catalyst to create drawings and paintings. Azaleas humbly, yet, beautifully
bloomed out, being left over, at the side of a road between rice paddies. All quiet. No one. I walked around and along rice fields, forests, some hills and a sea.

Matsushima means "pine tree islands" in Japanese. Indeed, so many pine trees are on little-dots-like islands in Matsushima Bay known for beauty. It was said that even a master of word, Basho had been at a loss for words when
he first saw the hundreds of pine-clad islets scattered in Matsushima Bay
during a 17th-century journey to the Tohoku region. Also, residents told me those tiny islands had protected them from the tsunami
or shock waves from a big earthquake in 2011.

What do you feel about these landscapes? Some readers are in a southern hemisphere. Do you feel difference of nature in a northern hemisphere?

The collected images have become the great references for illustration ongoing! I'm delightedly and confidently working on the storyboard, the illustration and becoming very busy with many projects and the documentation of the trip, too. I thank for your support and the Australia Council for the Arts.

About Me

Award winning fine artist, enthusiastic children's picture book illustrator, portraitist and event/conference sketcher, Sydney based. Greatest strength: "Empathic portraits". Spontaneous and beautiful. Outstanding speed and accuracy. In only a few minutes, my quick portraits capture models in any posture with any facial expression on spot. Figures appear lively and emotionally. My linguistic training enables me to analyse the text in detail and organise appropriate story boards for the target audience. Sociological methods and research skills are used to capture insights from a text. The work bridges between a text, reality and imagination. Style is broad from whimsical cartoons to fine art for multifarious subjects. Japanese naitve speaker. Enjoy my works in StyleFile